In response to the events of 9/11, the Bush administration launched a """"War on Terror"""" ushering in an era of anti-Muslim racism, or 'Islamophobia'. However, 9/11 did not create Islamophobia, an idea that has become the handmaiden of imperialism. Islamophobia examines the current backlash within the context of anti-Islamic origins, in the historic relationship between East and West.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

Deepa Kumar is vividly aware of the impact of Islamophobia on Muslims within the United Sates. She traces the recent growth of anti-Muslim feeling in America, however, to the history of American and European imperialism over many centuries, and to the desire by the Bush administration to justify the revengeful attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11, and to justify American support for the state of Israel, particularly the Likud leadership, against Palestinians. She notes, correctly and importantly, that it is frequently the case in human affairs that `an external enemy is ... paired with an internal one against whom palpable fear and hatred are generated. It follows that Islamophobia is about politics and not religion; it is therefore in the realm of politics that Islamophobia must be fought.' She notes too the existence of what she calls `liberal Islamophobia' and in this connection laments that the Democratic Party in the US, as also the political left more generally in western countries, has not yet adequately understood that Islamophobia is a political metter, not a religious one.

Kumar writes well and clearly, and with a wealth of references and anecdotes, some of them personal. Her arguments would have been more cogent, or even more cogent, if she had included much more consideration of Islamophobia in contemporary Europe, where those on the receiving end are economically more disadvantaged and oppressed than Muslims in America, and if the insights and concerns of Muslim scholars and commentators, both in Europe and America, had been given a fuller hearing. It would also have been relevant to examine the role of the media, and in this regard the concept of moral panic, and to give more attention to the anxieties about personal and national identity which arise from globalisation.

But all in all, this is a useful addition to the growing literature on the nature, causes and consequences of Islamophobia in western countries.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)

Amazon.com:
17 reviews

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful

Great book about Islamophobia27 Sept. 2012

By
S. Friedman
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

I have just finished reading the book, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire. It was written by Deepa Kumar, a faculty member at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Even though I live near Rutgers, I do not believe that I have ever met her.

It is a really excellent book that makes the case that Islamophobia has been constructed by those who rule the USA, including billionaire-funded foundations and think tanks and both the Republican and Democratic Parties. It also describes very well the extent to which Muslim communities in the US have been harassed, arrested and tortured by police, ICE and similar agencies. She makes a very good case also about Islamophobia as a new McCarthyism.

She also discusses how to struggle against this, and ties it into the struggles against police racism more generally, and into the struggles of Occupy.

16 of 23 people found the following review helpful

The 1% vs the 99%: a clash between justice and greed3 Nov. 2012

By
Enver Masud
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

Deepa Kumar does an excellent job of describing the history and current status of Islamophobia, and she names the persons and organizations who promote it.

Ultimately, the Islamic threat is a bogey created by the 1% to persuade the 99% to support their wars for empire and global dominance. In the process Americans are impoverished, the 1% get richer.

While billions are spent on Homeland Security -- the US INTEL BUDGET ALONE is greater than the TOTAL MILITARY SPENDING of every country except the US and China, the real threats to Americans get little attention by both the ruling class and mainstream news media.

The record shows that the FBI's network of informants actually created most of the terrorist plots "foiled" in the US since 9/11.

The clash between Islam and the West is in reality a clash between the 1% and 99%. It may be summed up in three words: justice versus greed -- Google "A Clash Between Justice and Greed, Not Islam and the West".

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

Amazing that Rutgers gave her tenure1 Aug. 2015

By
No Nonsense Scholar
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

This book is bends so far backward to excuse Islam-motivated violence and blames the West for all the conflicts -- past and present -- in the Middle East, that it is difficult to take this scholarship seriously. It makes sense that Kumar is not a historian but a media studies scholar. She does not know her history very well and offers us a polemical biased book. No wonder she sees no difference between ISIS that cuts peoples' heads off in cold blood and United States (see recent article in the "Chronicle of Higher Education"). Amazing that Rutgers gave her tenure....

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

This woman is an ISIS sympathizer and mouthpiece. She ...2 Aug. 2015

By
F. Poulos
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

This woman is an ISIS sympathizer and mouthpiece. She is also a Marxist, which is a strange combination since the two philosophies are diametrically opposed.

Antidote to selective amnesia2 Aug. 2015

By
ssanagav
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

Anybody without selective amnesia can remember pouring burning napalm on the vietnamese and can vouch for how brutal american empire building is, and that it is on the same league of ISIS. Who created al-Qaeda ? How did Saddam get chemical and biological weapons ? US sold them. It is no conspiracy theory - read declassified CIA files.

Blind nationalistic pride is so 17th century. I wish americans read books like these, learn & grow up, demand their elected governments to stop brutalizing the world !